Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Pala Casino 400 | Sunday, February 26, 2023
Ford Finishing Results:
5th – Kevin Harvick
7th – Brad Keselowski
10th – Joey Logano
13th – Chris Buescher
15th – Harrison Burton
17th – Todd Gilliland
18th – Michael McDowell
20th – Chase Briscoe
23rd – JJ Yeley
26th – Ryan Blaney
27th – Cody Ware
28th – Austin Cindric
33rd – Ryan Preece
35th – Aric Almirola
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang – “Our GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang was really good on the long runs, I just really struggled on the restarts with the front end. In the end, we had a chance, but I couldn’t put us in the right position on the restarts to guard our track position like we needed to. It was still a great day for our GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang. The guys did a great job on pit road all day and kept us up in the front.”
A LOT WAS MADE ABOUT WEEPERS AND THE TRACK FOR THE FINAL RACE HERE, SO HOW WERE THE TRACK CONDITIONS OVERALL? “The track conditions were fine. I didn’t really see any weepers and it was just really dirty every run. The second half of the race it cleaned up, but it was hard on the windshields. In the end, they did a great job preparing the track and we were able to put on a good race.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 Castrol Edge Ford Mustang – “We didn’t have a great start to the race… wasn’t driving really good, and I wasn’t really happy with it. Matt [McCall] and the crew just kept working on it. We had a couple of good adjustments there, got spun out and then recovered it. It was good to be able to recover. Just need a little more speed. Not quite where we need to be, but we weren’t terribly far off.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Pala Casino Ford Mustang – “We started off really bad. It took us a good amount of time and some big adjustments to get dialed in. I’m proud of this Pela Casino Mustang. We really got a lot closer toward the end there. We’re not where we want to be – still. But, we’re much, much closer. It’s nice to see that gain throughout the day. I think we would’ve discovered some of that if we would have had practice, but obviously nobody did. We’ll just keep working on it – getting a little bit closer, so we can be in the hunt towards the end.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 AAA Southern California Ford Mustang – “It looks like we were in the hunt. We weren’t the best car, and we needed to make an adjustment to get better. I was falling off hard and was hoping we’d get back on track… just couldn’t. It fell off at the end even more. Running top-five all day, finishing 10th, doesn’t feel that great. Overall, the momentum is there, we fought hard and got some stage points. So, it was still a decent day.”
LEADING THE RACE DURING THAT RESTART, SOME GUYS MAY HAVE FELT YOU STOPPED AND STARTED IN THE RESTART ZONE OR MAYBE HAD SOME ISSUES. “Go back and look at the data. I didn’t do anything. I just rolled it and went like everyone was anticipating it. It’s part of the new restart zone – it’s bigger. So, you can’t anticipate as much as you used to without getting into trouble. I went late in the zone because the car to the inside of me was laying back, so I was waiting for him to get up next to me before I went. I didn’t brake check anyone. It might look like it but you can go back and look at it and see it’s not there.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 Rush Truck Centers Ford Mustang – “We definitely had high hopes going into here. This is one of my better racetracks and we just completely struggled all day long from a lot of different issues. That’s not how we wanted to run, obviously. We’ve got a lot of work to do going into next week, but I feel like we can learn from it and move on.”
TODD GILLILAND, No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford Mustang – “This is something for us to build on. It was the best mile-and-a-half car we’ve had. There’s still work to do, but that was something to definitely work from. I’m proud of the effort by all my guys.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang – “I took off on the restart and went from second to third gear and all of a sudden everybody in front of us just stopped. I think the leader was just playing games, trying to prevent the runs coming from behind and they stopped in the middle of the restart zone was right about where they should have been accelerating. It was just a huge accordion effect. We were back in 16th, so everybody just started stacking up and you can’t stop on a dime. It’s disappointing to get wrecked out of the race like that on a silly Mickey Mouse restart, but I should have known better.”
RYAN PREECE, No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang – “It’s kind of stupid, to be honest with you on a professional level and we all wreck on a restart. I don’t know what happened, but just a victim of circumstances. It sucks. I was racing around Aric and we were just trying to be smart and get to the end of the race. Something like that, you’re not expecting everyone to wreck coming to the restart line. It’s unfortunate. That adjustment could have gotten us a lot better and we could have kept on making little gains. That was our goal, not to beat ourselves and just be there in the last 50 or 60. That’s why we stayed out that run, to see what our car would do in clean air and if we needed to work on it, which we did, and I felt like we just kept on making it better and better. It’s really a bad ending for this HaasTooling Ford Mustang, and even Aric, so we just have to go to Vegas and be on offense and start digging out of this hole we’re in right now.”
